The Knight's Guild: Expedition Outlands (Chapter 4 Added 2/27/19)

Apprentice

As it were, the Knight's Guild, a native order from the lands of Forever, had found themselves on yet another quest in a realm distant in both time and space known as, "The Outlands"... This is the story of how the new saga in the epic of the Knight's Guild begins to unfold...

It begins not with a battle or a heroic act told by bards in song among taverns; nay - it begins with architects. Stonemasons, and some of the best ale drinkers in all the land! We knights are close with this lot as their specialty is crucial in orders like ours establishing fortresses and strongholds from their master craftsmanship and engineering... A seasons worth of planning a new stronghold for knights unlike any that had ever been seen before was well under way. You see, the Knight's Guild had an elaborate plan to construct a fortress city on an island that would be a bastion of virtue and the heart of our order. However, as we would find out, there was a terrible unknown magic at play on that island... As our surveyors and architects were beginning construction on the island, a massive whirlpool opened up around the island swallowing it into the ocean! However, this was no ordinary whirlpool as it's magical properties created a portal to another realm instead. We sent out an rescue squad to find the architects and surveyors swallowed in the portal when the island sank, and we have finally received word back from them...

However, it comes with grave news. Somehow time travels much faster in the realm of the Outlands and in the time it took us to prepare the rescue squad and send them in, it had been 30 years passed... Given some calculable data in the message we received recently via communication crystals, we have estimated that it has now been over 150 years since the portal opened up in the Outlands. Our men have assured us that by the time their message reached us they will have long passed, but pleaded that we investigate further, as they believe that the time warp between our two realms of Forever and Outlands lies in the whirling waves of the portal that swallowed the island itself. This is how the Knight's Guild has come to know the Outlands, and having sent our best researchers to investigate the whirlpool, we estimate that it will soon stop spinning, placing the date to be around 612 AC when we can safely enter the portal. Prepare to be a part of the next chapter of the Knight's Guild! Huzzah!

Chapter 1 -- TLDR VERSIONThe knights were going to build a castle city on an island.
The island was swallowed by a whirlpool portal to a different realm.
We sent a rescue team in to find our architects that were on the island, and they too got lost.
The rescue team sent back a message explaining a time difference between our worlds, and when it would be safe to enter the portal.
The whirlpool calmed and the time warp stopped, placing UOO in the time 612 AC (around 600 years passed in UOO since the portal opened for only a couple weeks on UOF).
We can now safely enter it and search for clues left behind by our men that only weeks ago went into the portal, but their lives have passed hundreds of years ago in the Outlands.
We will establish a foothold in the Outlands and begin exploring this new realm and continue our quest for virtue and making pilgrimage to their shrines! Huzzah!

Chapter 2 -- A DISCOVERY IN THE NEW WORLD

As the maelstrom calmed and the portal became a stable gate between worlds, the Knight's Guild was now able to travel back and forth safely and at will. Their entry into these Outlands was met with far more than they had imagined; there were massive cities and kingdoms, politics and civil wars, people were everywhere and they seemed to always be in a hurry to get to their next destination or task in this life. Time somehow still seemed sped up, but as they would learn, it was merely the pace of the culture due to such a highly populated realm. They had seen many great things in their home of Forever, but this all was quite unique.

As the Knight's traveled from town to town, learning of many alien things to them that are normal in this world, they searched the people for information about their men who entered the Outlands portal only weeks ago, but have lived and been gone for hundreds of years here in this new realm. Exhausting all options in all towns, the Knight's spread out and began searching homesteads and farms, only to find strife among most of the countryside or harsh environments lacking any hope to find clues of their brothers and what they urged the Knight's to come in search of. Afterall, we knew that our brothers who first entered the portal had long passed when we would enter ourselves, but lo, they sent back a message urging us to send more men and find the clues to some delicate information they left behind for us... However, our search yielded very little except for a few vague memories of tales about a small order of Knights that roamed the lands seeking the Shrines, but nothing more.

Hope seemed to be fading, and over time, the Knights could not keep roaming these lands without a base or a home. It was then they setup their Prevalian outpost where they would lay the first stones in the foundation of a HQ to operate from while continuing their search, but also to recruit more knights as they realized their stay here would be a while.

It was then that they found their first glimmer of hope - in their recruits. At first, a few had joined us bringing with them their childhood tales of Knights of old, who seemed much like us, as their reason for wanting to join our order. But then, we began to gain recruits who claimed to know of whom we speak, and in fact were of their bloodlines, stating that some of our men that we named were their ancestors. They had joined us to fulfill their families duties in passing down their tale and protecting the information, awaiting our return in these lands where their forefathers had instructed them…

As we spoke with these recruits who claimed to be our knight’s great-great-great-great… grandchildren, we extracted enough information that lead us to Nusero island… As these recruits claimed, the knights of old decided the best way to preserve information, or whatever they discovered, would not be in written books or temples, but in their blood - they started families and became farmers and craftsmen while practicing Virtuism from our Order and taught it to their younger generations, instilling in them the importance in this quest - to find us when we came back and tell us all they knew. However, in the ravaging of time, word of mouth lost some of the important details that the Knight’s would now begin to search for and piece the whole purpose of their voyage here together… And so, now, on Nusero island, home to the dungeon it is named after and domain of the great dragons of this world, we setup camp and begin excavating where the kin of our brothers had instructed. And lo, we have found something..

As we continue to dig, we inch closer and closer to whatever it is that our Knights before us begged us to return for and discover of these strange Outlands…

(Nusero dungeon entrance 2 screens North of dig site)

Chapter 2 -- TLDR VERSIONWe entered the portal, discovered a hugely populated world with lots of history.
We begin searching towns and countryside for clues about our knights here before us, but find nothing.
We decide to start recruiting and that’s when we find that recruits are claiming to be younger generations of our knights that were here before us.
We discover that our knights had families to pass down the clues and information to us when we got here, knowing it would be hundreds of years difference.
The recruits claimed their families told them they started their order on Nusero and that is where we would find out what they wanted us to come back for so badly.
We are now in the process of excavating the area rumored to hold the secrets we are looking for, right outside of the Nusero dungeon entrance, and have setup a base camp there for the dig site effort.

Apprentice

Digging continues outside of the dungeon Nusero by archaeologists and miners; a delicate process of removing away the earth from around these relics and artifacts beneath the surface of the island. More brave men and women are made knights, and their servants, now squires, are sent to aid archaeologists at the dig site. Teams of knights are dispatched to the nearby dungeon searching for clues that archaeologists believe may be hidden and guarded down there based on their findings.

Our researchers think there are two special chambers found deep within the dungeon at depths so dark the air is almost too putrid and hot to breathe. But if their findings are true, it could contain information that would help us better understand what our ancestor knights left behind for us in this realm to see or know… Pressing forward, a team of Knights were assembled for the task and were then dispatched in search of these chambers while on the lookout for anything peculiar or strange.

The following is the report given by Sir Rendlesham, Commander of the Knight’s Guild:

“I have comprised a party of knights by the names of Theleme, Sir Sesshomaru, Le’Strat Durant and Hammura to carry out out our mission, and should there be need of eye witness report, call on these men… Of our findings at the request of the archaeologists, we have found much that they should know, however, the dragons here have nested everywhere making it impossible to clear this place for proper study and research. I have enclosed a relief sketch of some runes and writings on the wall accompanied by a drawing of some notable architecture that seems very out of place…”

“...but of our mission, success was ours, for we have located the chamber of black stone and the chamber of everflowing lava as hoped. Packaged carefully with this letter are two artifacts that were retrieved from these chambers. However, there is something very amiss about these chambers that bodes a powerful presence and the stench of death permanent in the air. Do inform me of any discoveries made by our researchers at once! Huzzah!”

It was three days later that the archaeologists came to the Commander with fascinating news. With the help of a small guild of scholars from Cambria, known to some in a freedom movement as New Trinsic, and the arcane schools from the Knight’s home-world of Forever, the archaeologists have discovered that the dungeon of Nusero itself was once a megalithic castle-like temple built by the Knights that landed here over 600 years ago. They were able to build such a massive fortress as they were the best masons and architects that were on a mission to build a magnificent castle city as it were in the first place when they were pulled into the Outlands. And from the carvings copied from the wall, they tell of runes that hold a magic effigy over dragons; wards that keep them in the dungeon, but strangely the wards have lost their power and it seems the dragons have taken a liking to this place anyway.

We now believe that the Knights of olde who built this massive temple tamed dragons to guard it, and used wards to keep them here long after their death in case the Knights were to ever perish. And it would seem that the knights did in fact do just that; perish -- but stranger yet, they didn’t just perish, they vanished without a trace. These ancient knights left nothing of themselves save these giant temples riddled with idols of Virtuism and the dragons that guard it to this day. Unfortunately, hundreds of years of dragons returning to their feral state and nesting throughout the temple has turned most of it to ruins save for some notable architecture scattered about the dungeon in the form of bridges, staircases and in the lower levels, what appears to be the fortress, a place that a last stand was made at one time; possibly a clue to what happened to the Knights that once ruled here with dragons and how they mysteriously vanished. What we do know is there is more to dig and be uncovered at the dig site. We also know that this is in fact the place of our ancestors, and their once great castle-temple that has been reduced to a dungeon, was the place that they kept their secrets the most heavily guarded. And, we know, we must find out what those secrets are…

Archaeologists and scholars are still trying to understand what the idols that were retrieved from the chamber of black stone and the chamber of everflowing lava can tell us, but until then, we continue to send forth teams of Knights to fetch more information from the dungeon of our ancestors and dig the monumental site that sits outside of the dungeon’s mouth, just feet below the grounds surface, waiting to tell us it’s many hidden truths.

Chapter 3 -- TLDR VERSIONWe are still excavating the dig site, but beginning to settle the area more permanently.
Based on artifacts discovered at the dig site, archaeologists believe there may be two chambers found in Nusero that could have some clues as to what we are looking for.
A team of knights were sent into Nusero dungeon to retrieve any data or artifacts they could find while the archaeologists continue to work at the dig site.
The team of knights discovered the two chambers mentioned above along with other artifacts and architecture seemingly built within the dungeon.
…..
As for their findings:
Our knights were indeed here, hundreds of years ago in this world but only months ago in our world of origin, Forever, as we expected.
Nusero dungeon actually, hundreds of years ago, used to be a Knight’s Temple that was guarded by tamed dragons before the Knights mysteriously vanished and the dragons went wild, still guarding the ruins and secrets of the past to this day.
What was being guarded and why they built such a temple, we do not know but are still digging to find out.

Apprentice

We left off our story last after discovering that the dungeon Nusero used to be a massive underground castle that was constructed by our order of Knights hundreds of years ago. However, they seemingly vanished without a trace, leaving the mega-structure in ruins from being overrun by the generations of once tamed dragons and drakes that guarded the grand citadel at our Knight’s sides; but what were they guarding? Our archaeologists are now working in conjunction with a new group of lore masters and magisters that have been decoding the many artifacts, manuscripts and relics found by our Knights and they have made more progress on this matter…

Richard Lor, a historian and scholar of antiquity (as well as the Knight’s guild’s personal Magister), and Noctifer, Chief Archaeologist (along with his esteemed team of experts), believe they know what was being guarded by our Knight’s hundreds of years ago; a shard of malice - one of three corrupt shards of the eight fragments (in total) that once made the gem of immortality here in our world. Yet history today tells us that all eight of the gem shards have been lost to mankind, which would make our team’s hypothesis impossible. But lo, carefully restored scrolls and tomes recently found by our Knights give clues to an event that tells of the finding of a powerful shard that matches the corrupt shards in the creation legends with great detail.

The story was written by the hands of Knights and Friars themselves, and states that during expansion of the under-ground castle, one of the laborers who was a devout believer in Virtuism had found the stone while excavating deep below the foot of the volcano above.

It is believed that when he tried to free the glass-like shard, he cut his hand on it’s edge, allowing his blood to pour over the stone wedged in rock. At this point, it is believed that the shard somehow was activated or awoken, cursed or hexxed with some form of ancient blood magic that seemed to react to the caustic fluid, as if drawing power from it.

The knight who had bled on the shard was reported to have died from an infection of his wound shortly after. Unfortunately, the rest of the manuscripts currently obtained could not be restored and what’s left of the story remains a mystery unless we can keep recovering more clues that might tell us the rest of this tale.

Interestingly enough, however, our team made the connection that from the legible dates recorded in the ancient writs, this all took place when history recorded that the first Shrine of Virtue had become corrupt around 500-550 years ago. Strangely, this is also when the Shadowlords were first reported to have been seen in Avadon in physical form, which as we also know from historic records, started the great cult movements of the lost ones whom idolized and worshiped these demons; the Shadowlords... Did the discovery and fate of this shard coming into the hands of the Knight’s Guild at one time have some part to play in corrupting the shrines over 500 years ago? We can only speculate -- for now.

We now believe that the Knight’s did not build their giant underground castle for the reason of guarding this shard they found at first, per-say, but rather used their castle for this purpose when they discovered what they had actually found. This also explains why the Knight’s felt it necessary to tame and use dragons as guards here as well. But, we still do not know where the Knights mysteriously vanished to or where the shard they discovered is at today. More questions arise with each one answered, pushing us to dig deeper, fight harder and seek out more relics of the past, following the clues we discover to find an answer to what all of this means.

Chapter 4 -- TLDR VERSION-When building the ancient castles lowest depths (now known as Nusero dungeon), the Knight's found one of the corrupt shards of the gem of immortality (from server official lore, "Creation Story").
-Coming in contact with the blood of a man of Virtue who cut himself on the gem fragment, the shard of malice was unknowingly awoken.
-Other records indicate this was around the time when the first shrine fell to corruption somewhere between 500-550 years ago.
-This is also, ironically, the same time period that the Shadowlords were first seen in the world and groups of their cult like followers begin to spead across the kingdom.